In Brief:
- OpenSea has reversed a contentious decision to limit the number of NFTs creators can mint.
- OpenSea now only allows five NFT collections with 50 items per collection.
- OpenSea later revised its decision, apologising for not consulting its community before making the choice.
OpenSea said on Thursday night that it has changed its decision to limit collections created with its smart contract, following community outcry. OpenSea, an NFT marketplace, has reversed a contentious decision to limit the number of NFTs and collections creators can mint using its smart contract.
When using OpenSea’s collection storefront contract, the platform originally permitted limitless collections and items, but now only allows five NFT collections with 50 items per collection.
Early this morning, OpenSea’s new Twitter support account posted that it had “updated our collection storefront contract limits” to only allow five collections per NFT wallet or user, with each collection containing a maximum of 50 items or NFT collectibles.
“We recognise this change may have an impact on our community, so please don’t hesitate to express how this affects your creative flow,” a following tweet in the thread stated.
In the hours after the original tweet, the NFT community reacted forcefully, with a wide range of creators and crypto industry figures slamming the marketplace for prohibiting collections that employ OpenSea’s own NFT smart contract.
OpenSea revised its decision, apologising for not consulting its community before making the choice. The constraints were imposed because the smart contract was being abused, with “over 80% of the goods created with this tool being plagiarised works, false collections, and spam,” according to the company.
“We’re working on a number of measures to ensure we support our creators while preventing criminal actors,” OpenSea noted.
NFT creators retaliated, with some claiming that as a result of the move, their unfinished collections would never be completed, while others stated that they were in the middle of developing collections that numbered in the hundreds of thousands.
On Twitter, one maker, who goes by the handle “HamsterNFT,” provided a screenshot of how they couldn’t upload any more NFTs, expressing their disappointment at being stopped at 96 pieces out of a 100-piece collection.
Creators might still use their own smart contract to get around OpenSea’s restrictions, but given that smart contract implementation costs between $1,000 and $2,000 in gas expenses, some have said that they will relocate their collections to other platforms.
Many new adjustments and precautions have been implemented by the largest Ethereum NFT marketplace to support the creators. Rumoured screenshots of OpenSea concentrating on Solana integration and Phantom wallet compatibility were hot topics in the crypto community earlier this week.
